Day 2: Ground hog day

Today turned out pretty much like yesterday. Woke up and had breakfast with the family.  Pancakes and bacon is hard to turn down.  Anyway, The walls in the master bedroom need to be painted now. This is a little more work as the trim needed to be wiped down, all of the outlet plates needed to be removed and all of the furniture needed to be pushed to the center. So looking at how much paint is available to paint this room, which is a decent size. I determine what one gallon is not going to make it.  Off to Sherwin-Williams i go to get another gallon.  Ok, now I am back and ready to get down to business. First off the trim needs to taped. Second the drop clothes need to be layed down. Now painting can begin……

4.5 hours later painting is complete. A break is welcomed and the couch is so relaxing. After feeling recuperated enough and the paint dried. Its time to go upstairs and swap out the outlets with new ones and put plates on them so we can move the furniture back into place. My wife is delighted that the room is almost complete. We spend the late afternoon moving the furniture around and getting it ready to sleep tonight. I am beat and think that a Red-bull vodka is a good idea.

Evening comes and we have a Costco chicken pot pie which is delish. I refrain from having seconds and have a couple of bud lights instead. It is family movie night so the four of us watch Avengers – Infinity Wars. The wife makes popcorn for the children as a snack and I refrain from having any. The movie was good the 3rd time around.

Late night arrives, laying in bed a decision on my part that the new Baywatch is a movie to fall asleep to. This was not the case and bedtime did not happen until after the clock reached another day.

 

All in all it was an active day. Again did not get cardio or weight training but did manage to stay busy. F983B8B7-D924-4ECD-8315-0ACA08B4508B

Day 1:….

September 1st: Today is the day that I have had enough. I told myself repeatedly that I was going to get in shape at 40 years old.  Sure everyone has started and stopped working out countless times. I even joined a gym because I felt like giving someone else money for two years. It wasn’t because of my motivation to get in shape and the facility has everything that you could possibly need to exercise.

So I wake up and I have a couple of things planned in the morning and a get together at my place later in the evening. Well, my couple of things consisted of painting the ceilings of our mater bedroom, powder room, and the bathroom. Flash forward and my day is pretty much shot. Thankfully my wife took the kiddo’s out for a few hours so I could concentrate.  Since all of the work was above my head I am counting this as my first workout. Hand painting where the wall and ceiling meet and using the roller overhead was a nice little shoulder workout. Believe it or not when I got going you could feel a little presperation starting. Now this is not like a classic hit the weights and treadmill kind of day, but lets face it,it is going down in the books as my first. Hell I am an overweight middle-aged man.

Midday approaches and any glimmer of hope of going downstairs and getting some additional exercise is out of the question. We have friends and children coming over at 6:00 and guess who got nominated to help get the house straightened up for a party, yours truly. Now don’t get me wrong, I help out when it is required. Earlier in the week the wife asked about our plans this weekend being Labor Day and all, It was mentioned that we could just think of our friends over the holiday and I would be content with that. This was not the right answer to having friends over. Fast forward a little and I managed to get the kids to pick up the toys they got out earlier so they could take the out again when the other little arrived. So this is a win and everyone is happy.

Evening is here and we are all having a good time.  Pizza Hut was ordered and bud lights were thrown back. Us guys watched the Michigan vs. Notre Dame game on the couch and overall the night was a success. While calories were not cut by any means today nor did a marathon get run, I did feel like there was some activity on my part.  Being active is one of my key goals in the blog.

 

 

 

A Four Month Journey

This is for anyone who waited to long to get back into shape. I told my self that I would get back into shape when the big 4-0 came.

I had always been in decent shape in my younger years. I worked out in my 20’s and was active in softball. I am a tradesman and was constantly moving out in the field doing physical activity. As I got older and moved into more of a management role, you could see that a couple of pounds creeped on me. Turning 30 I was about 10 lbs over what I had always been. 35 hit and another 5 lbs came. Just after turning 35 is when I took a desk job at an engineering firm helping out in the design of construction projects. This was my ultimate downfall for staying with the dad bod. Desk work which was new to me has different level of stress on the body. While being used to the physical nature of construction, the mental anguish that the desk provided left me just as tired at the end of the day but 9/10th of the calories were burned. I just went to work and home etc. This put on an instant 10 lbs. I have since switched jobs and have a PM role at a construction company. The desk is still the common denominator between these positions. I have now started to push my weight over the 25 lbs gained since my early 20’s. Time for action!

I have a history of heart conditions on my fathers side of the family. My grandfather had double bypass surgery a few years back. He was a lifelong truck driver. While never a smoker, just enjoyed the brandy cocktails and eating processed foods. Grandma was a huge fan of the microwave and the ease of making foods with it. My dad has had 2 angioplasty procedures. His lifestyle I would describe as a good time in the earlier years. A product of the 70’s growing up. Smoked and drank all of his life and continues to do so today.

I do yearly physical check up and my blood pressure and cholesterol levels have been rising steady along with my weight. My PA suggested that if something is not done I would need to be on blood pressure medication and a statin for the cholesterol. My next check up is in February 2019 and this will decide if diet and exercise is enough to reduce my rising blood pressure and cholesterol. The last thing needed at 40 is to have a heart condition.

Lets go back in time here to 2017. This is when I made the decision to get more active.  My Dr visit came late winter and we had the talk from above. I did not get back to working out again until the fall. While having health issues was on my mind it wasn’t the only reason. I decided that I wanted to compete in an activity when turning 40. People are always doing a 5K, 1/2 marathon, training for a triathlon, or doing a tuff mudder. None of my network of friends does any of these. I like to ski, and the Badger State Games was approaching. Why not compete in downhill skiing? I grew up skiing at Devils Head Resort in middle Wisconsin. While not the best skier out there, I could hold my line when it came to racing down the slopes. So in October I registered for both downhill and slalom. This is when I started working out again. I hit the weights and did cardio to get my legs conditioned enough to handle some serious skiing. Once the snow fell, twice a week we were out there. One day teaching my kids to ski and another day for me to get out and practice. I have to admit it was a lot of fun getting back out on the slopes and kicking ass. It didn’t take long and I was blowing by the recreational skiers. I did notice that the ones skiing circles around me were the old men. They have had a lifetime skiing and they learned on old school straight skis.

So Ski season came, I competed and the working out stopped, summer came and here I am. Now I have four months to get into shape. This should be easy right? Being married with two children (8-5), full time job and all of the extra curricular activities that the family is signed up for does not leave much time. Now enough time has lapsed throughout the year. While looking at motivation to help me through my inner goal of getting in shape I asked my self why not blog about it? That is exactly what I am going to do, log my journey of how well I do in the time that is left of 2018. This blog will not only follow my work outs but the journey getting to the finish line. While I do not see a blog everyday, but enough to show how well I am tracking my goals no matter how small a win or set back is.

Thanks for reading,

Jimmy

“Sweat is FAT Crying”. — Unkown

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